Most of the photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs, 20 to 200 megabytes in size) from the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) Many were digitized by LOC contractors using a Sinar studio back. They are adjusted by your webmaster for contrast and color in Photoshop before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here.

Whitehall Street, Atlanta, 1864. This photo of a black Union soldier posted at a slave auction house in Atlanta is one of hundreds taken by George N. Barnard during Gen. Sherman's occupation of the city in the fall of 1864. Many were destroyed in the conflagration that erupted upon Sherman's firing of Confederate munitions stores when he departed on Nov. 15. View full size.
We should also remember that the nation put its very life on the line in order to end it.
As a nation we should feel shame that we sold our fellow human beings. Thank god for pictures and history, so the same mistakes are not repeated.
Lamp oil? Check. Tobacco? Check. Human being? Check.
A Bible or a BlackBerry?
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